Kiribati once closed a California-sized ocean sanctuary
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area in central Pacific Kiribati spans about 408,250 square kilometres—11.34 percent of the nation’s EEZ—ranking among Earth’s largest marine reserves. Midway between Australia and Hawaii, it holds roughly 800 known animal species across reefs, fourteen seamounts, and deep habitats.
About 200 coral species, 500 fishes, 18 marine mammals and 44 birds make up the known inventory. The reserve holds three atolls with lagoons, Orona, Nikumaroro and Kanton, alongside five low reef-fringed islands, Manra, Rawaki, McKean, Birnie and Enderbury, and two drowned reefs, Winslow and Carondelet. Between them they cover seven habitat types, from island and lagoon to seamount, deep seabed and open ocean.
Obura and colleagues surveyed the islands in 2000 and found the reefs in excellent condition, spared the bleaching seen elsewhere in the Pacific and showing no coral disease. Live coral covered a moderate 20 to 40 percent of the reef, and waves smashed so much coral on the southern, eastern and northern sides that rubble piled up in lagoons. Lagoon floors were mostly hard coral, about 36 percent, followed by red coralline algae at 18 percent and rubble near 17 percent, a mix that signals vigorous reef building.
Kiribati set up the PIPA Trust with Conservation International and the New England Aquarium; when the New England partner withdrew in 2018, the Aquarium of the Pacific took its board seat. After criticism of earlier fishing levels, all commercial extraction, tuna included, was banned from 1 January 2015, except within a small sustainable-use zone around Canton.
The closure did not last. In November 2021 Kiribati said it would lift the protected status to raise tuna catches, and commercial fishing formally resumed in 2023, reopening waters once held up as a model of large-scale ocean protection.
Source: Phoenix Islands Protected Area
